Brooklyn Nine-Nine is just a good time. The characters are inherently watchable and plots like this week with the return of the Pontiac Bandit (Craig Robinson) allow for those characters to be funny, warm and entertaining. Rosa and her task force along with Jake square in out a head honcho of the Giggle Pig trafficking ring with the help of the Bandit while Santiago works on a Christmas scrapbook for Captain Holt and to her distress catches a mistake in one of his famous older cases. In the smallest but no less great plot, Gina and Boyle try to figure out what to do about their parent’s relationship.
The Santiago and Terry pairing is a delightful one because it always brings out Amy’s eccentricities a bit more than usual. Her genuine love of making scrapbooks, her need to gain Holt’s approval as a mentor, her dedication to the smallest tasks, all of them seem bigger with Terry around because, oddly enough, he’s the sounding board of much of the characters crazy and few touch Amy’s. There’s also a fun sibling dynamic with Terry making sarcastic remarks to every over the top idea Amy has. Her fun is cut short though when she catches the mistake Holt made years ago while documenting his career and she’s forced to tell him. This allows us one of my all-time favorite things about this show: flashback Holt and that within itself would have guaranteed this episode as a winner to me.
Chelsea Peretti maybe has the moment of the episode when she walks away from her mother and Boyle’s father in disgust, casually stealing a couple’s bottle of wine. She and Boyle are sure that the two are going to break-up after her mom opens his Christmas gift of a digital scale but instead it makes it worse, leading to the revelation that they’re moving in together. Boyle and Gina are stuck together so to speak even if it’s simply to help Gina with her new purpose in life which is dedicating all energy into breaking the couple up.
Jake and Rosa are forced to team up with the Bandit, much to the disgust of Jake who’s spent a large portion of his career trying to put him away. The deal is that the Bandit can help and will get a reduced sentence if he helps find higher ups of the Giggle Pig drug ring and Rosa is willing to do anything. Jake puts his frustration away and decides to help Rosa out while simultaneously being able to keep a close eye on the Bandit. Robinson and Andy Samberg have a wonderful rapport and the two characters are fun to watch mainly because Robinson’s bad guy seems so affable and fun loving that you forget he’s a criminal to begin with. Of course, Jake can’t have it all and at the end has to give up the Bandit again in order to help Rosa capture one of the distributors.
It all leads to a welcome moment between Rosa and Jake where the former thanks him for having her back, smiling in an uncharacteristic fashion. Their relationship is always one I look forward to seeing more of and, similarly, the storyline for Rosa’s task force this season has been a wonderful way to showcase the character as well as Stephanie Beatriz’s skillsets.
It’s another great episode to a show that’s become one that I eagerly look forward to watching each week.
9/10
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